With a goal of creating safe, fun places for dogs and humans to play, PetSafe’s “Bark for Your Park” program is always exciting—for communities, participants and their pets, for PetSafe, and for Designsensory. For 2016, the Bark for Your Park program was reconfigured. The website, outreach, social, PR and support graphics, and many other components, were turned over to the Designsensory to be rethought and reconceived.

In prior years, small to large cities would compete to win funding for the design and build of a dog park in their area. They used marketing and advertising tools that we created to drum up political and public support, and to push voting on the website portal. The cities with the highest participation in voting would ultimately compete for the prize and win.

For 2016, Petsafe wanted to transform the program to something more far-reaching that would allow greater participation from applicants. We determined that a grant application format would be a better approach to achieving program goals.

First, we assessed established brand awareness, performed attitude and usage studies, and set measured benchmarks. Next, we hosted town hall type meetings in participating communities; measured contest KPIs, for entrants, votes, inquiries, coverage; and blended simple, succinct research into the contest. And finally, we measured outcomes.

After a strategic planning period, we created presentations for PetSafe to help sell the new concept internally and to sales teams across the country. We produced a video to frame the new concept. A revamped website launched May 1st. The 2016 grant application period yielded participation from more than 120 communities, more than doubling previous years!

To promote the ongoing program, and reinvigorate enthusiasm, we divided the contest into three segments to encompass all aspects of building, enhancing and maintaining a park. The “building” segment supports PetSafe’s mission to create more dog parks, encourages ongoing engagement with the brand and simplifies the contest with its easy-to-use app. An “enhancing” segment offers Pimp Your Park, which allows PetSafe to target larger cities and provides a quicker turnaround. And, the “maintaining” segment, Groom Your Park, demonstrates PetSafe’s ability to create parks and to keep them going, and encourages continued engagement from previous participants.

The restructuring of Bark for Your Park 2016 tranformed a complicated contest into something that will help more communities and build brand awareness—an effective win for the PetSafe team. Check out the winners and prizes here. With more parks, bigger giveaways and better awareness, PetSafe has the opportunity to evolve and elevate Bark For Your Park.